Living and working in Belize!

I quit my job and moved to Belize – Part III

We purchased beachfront land in an area called ‘Palmero Point’. We came back to Canada and carried on with life as usual, occasionally discussing our future paradise home. We wanted to build a home and have a couple of vacation rental units in it. Lots of discussion of other ideas, too but this was the main goal. As the stress kept piling up on both of us, Aaron started pushing to make the move sooner. I kept pushing back that we needed to save more money first. It would take the better part of a year to build our home and we wouldn’t be working that year and perhaps not much of the following year either as we build clientele. Finally we sat down and did the numbers and it worked. I estimated the cost of living in Belize based on blogs of other expats who made the move. We got an architect to design our home and the vacation rental units and he gave us a cost estimate to build it. The numbers worked. We could go now.

We sold our house and one of our cars, quit our jobs, and had a big estate sale to sell everything we own except some clothing and a few personal items.

Everything we own summed up in 9 suitcases and a dozen boxes (mostly my supplies for doing nails and making jewelry. Wow, is that liberating!

We dropped all but four bags off at my sister’s house along with our Mini Dachshund, Simon. We loaded the four bags and our Great Dane, Raine into the Jeep and hit the road. Destination: Miami. We had researched moving our dogs to Belize and the cheapest quote we got for Raine, weighing in at 150lbs and too large for regular planes, was $14,000 CAD. Nope. If we could get him to a temperature controlled cargo plane in Miami, the cost was $5,000. So that’s exactly what we did. It took us five days to get there and it was a really fun road trip! We caught a flight to Belize and here we are! My sister and her husband flew Simon out to us about a week and a half later. Of course I’ve left out all the painstaking details (all the vet trips for the dogs, getting finances in order, actually selling everything we owned, packing, finding a place to live in Belize from afar, etc). I have to say, it wasn’t that difficult, though. The hardest part was making up our minds to actually do it.

So, you wanted to know why we did it and you wanted to know how we did it and I’ve given you the Cole’s notes of both. The whole experience has been exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Are we glad we did it? Absolutely. It’s only been a month and a half so far but life here is everything we were looking for. Simple and beautiful.

To sum it all up, I’d say there are two very important things you absolutely must have in order to even consider making a move like this. Stay tuned to find out what they are!

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Published by Serena

I'm from Canada and now live in San Pedro, Belize with my amazing husband and two dogs, Raine (Great Dane) and Simon (mini Dachshund). I worked in Oil and Gas for almost 15 years in Human Resources. I have a degree in Psychology and Sociology and I have been giving advice and coaching others on solving problems for as long as I can remember. I am direct and sometimes blunt but I'm good at solving problems (I enjoy it!)
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6 thoughts on “I quit my job and moved to Belize – Part III”

Good for you Serena! I am glad it worked out for you. I too built a house in Veracruz Mexico with similar intent, but it did not go as well for me. The developer abandoned the project three houses in and the entire property was overrun by gangs and thieves….it was like burning hundreds or thousands of dollars in a barrel on the beach. All that is left of my gorgeous, fully equipped house is the exterior walls. I am always happy to see when others succeed at living the dream. Enjoy your life. Que te vaya bien!

Wow I’m so sorry to hear that. That’s just the absolute pits! Living in paradise doesn’t come without it’s risks that’s for sure. We will start building in the next month or two. Fingers crossed! I hope you are doing well otherwise!

My husband and I will be moving down this fall and are having trouble finding options to bring our dogs down – 2 boxers. Did you fly your dog down on Amerijet? That seems to be the only airline I can find to do it. I’d be interested to get your feedback. Thanks, Kate

Hi Kate, yes that is what we did. We went through a company called Pet Relocation but they used Amerijet from Miami to Belize City. Once you have all the paperwork in order, it isn’t too difficult. Good luck in your move!